Tuesday, and it is time, once again for Monochrome Madness. Black and white images are featured on Leanne Coles blog each tuesday. It gives me reason to think in terms monochrome rather than colour. By dedicating at least one day a week to monochrome I have increased my awareness of pattern and line, and learned that not all images work well in black and white.

Head on over the Leanne’s Blog to see what other photographers have been photographing.

With all the travelling we did last year I didn’t do any gardening, no regrets, we have to make choices and can’t do it all!

I will admit that I missed digging in the dirt. Spring is in the air and like a lot of Albertans I am itching to see things grow. When out for a walk I stop check for buds on the trees. I have become obsessed with Pintrest gardening and I have been reading books and blogs thinking about what I would plant when it gets a little warmer. I repeated remind myself that it isn’t safe for an Alberta gardener to put anything new into the ground before the May long weekend, as we will get frosty evenings and maybe even snow until then!!!

To keep me going I visit the garden centre and flower stores to breath in the smell of fresh dirt and photograph beautiful new grown.

Ponte Vecchio over the River Arno in Florence Italy, one of the oldest bridges in Florence. A pedestrian bridge with shops built on both sides is more beautiful at night. The window light giving the buildings all a golden glow that reflecting in the river.

I have posted several pictures over the last year from Florence Italy. I have always love finding reflections in shop windows and rivers. Reflections can add symmetry to the image as it does here, or a interesting dimension to the images like when I find the clouds reflecting in the building windows! you can check out some of those images

While visiting Amsterdam last December we stumbled upon the Jorrit Heinen Royal Gifts and Collectables, located in the Munt Tower. We had were headed to the floating flower market, when Bill remember the store and we headed in for a look. Many of the pieces on the main floor of the shop appeared to be mass produced, hundreds of Christmas ornaments, cups, plates, and bowls all much the same. Upstairs many of the pieces were unique, single pieces each one with a different painting, this lady was hard at work painting a new piece. We watched her work for a while, the painting so delicate and detailed, so methodical and beautiful.

After watching her work for a while I asked if I could take a few photos. I wanted to show both the artist at work and the detail of her painting. Not always easy in the shop like this a busy environment, lots of distractions on her work table. She had a bright work light directed on the bowl, creating a deep shadow on her face. I tried several different angles from in front of her, and slightly above her work before settling on this image that showed her and her work without a lot of the distractions.

I processed the image in lightroom. Soem quite steps that I always used; lens corrections, auto exposure, and a cross processing preset to bring add a little blue to the image. The cross processing for blue seemed appropriate given the subject!

I wander around with my camera almost all of the time, and sometimes you will find me laying on the ground, climbing into a tree, hanging over a fence railing just to get the picture. I have gotten use to the idea that people will stop and stare I am sure they are trying to figure out what the heck am I taking a picture of. But when I got down really low to take this picture of the horse and carriage and the horse looked at me like I was crazy I knew it would be a great photo. It makes me smile!

How about you any memorable photos with crazy stories, share them on your blog and send us a link.

Frost on the car window! Without the garage I am having to go out and warm the car up and clean the windows, if we leave first thing in the morning! my reward is the beautiful lace patterns. But I have to be quick it doesn’t take long for them to disappear once the heat is turned on.

We have had a few nice days, and a few snowy wet days. The calendar notes the first day of spring has come and gone but it will be a few more weeks before we here in southern Alberta will see new growth on the trees a clear sign of spring.

The days have been a cloudy and grey but I have been taking my macro lens and capturing the tiny details, lacy snow and ice patterns, last season’s seed pods and berries. These tiny details that I often miss when out for a walk. Getting lost in my lens finding small beautiful detail that nature provides is a wonderful relaxing way to spend the day.

It is Friday and time for another After-Before image. This photo taken in Ronda Spain during our visit in January 2015. It will be another 6 weeks or so before we see the Cherry blossoms here in Calgary! On the plus side I will be able to see and photograph them again this year. For this post I wanted to describe a little of the editing choices I made, you can see below the image I started with….

Spring in Ronda, original capture

After importing the image into Lightroom, I started my adjustments in the Basic Module, starting with auto tone, to see where the program would take the image. I modified tint to +13 bringing out the pink in the image. I then opened the image below in Photoshop.

initial image opened in Photoshop

I then added a textured layer that enhances the pink, warms the image slightly, and unifies the pink through image and the mottled background. Below is the textured layer that I used for this image, before adding to the layered texture to my cherry blossom image I modified it by increasing exposure +70, and decreasing clarity -6. I also increased saturation on the magenta and the red +6, softening the colours and texture slightly and bringing out the pinks. I almost always modify the textures as needed for each image, to bring out the qualities I most want to enhance.

The blend mode on the textured layer was set to soft light, at 70%, and the final result above gives us that bright spring day look.

For more after before image head on over to Stacy Fischer’s blog, she host a forum on Fridays, and photographers from all over the world participate. Sharing their work and their image process secrets. There is lots of inspiring photography and lots to be learned. I am looking forward to hearing from you, does the textured layer add to the image or detract?

If you like the blog please share it with your friends, and hop on over to my website to see more of my work.

Spring is in the air, but there is still frost on the car window in the morning and I can’t resist taking mu camera with me for a few shots each morning. Tiny abstract landscapes. I hope you are enjoying your spring and finding gorgeous thing to look at.